Archive for August, 2010

I doubt I’m the only one who can sometimes feel down about money, family or friends, and of course life in general. This song honestly gives me a feeling of hope every time I listen to it.

After visiting Las Vegas for the MAGIC Marketplace fashion trade show, I realized that I am not a lucky person. I would sit down in front of the 1 cent slot machine, put in my dollar, and walk away with my head down after just about losing 100 pulls straight. On the other hand, the people I was traveling with would either walk away with some winnings or at least stretch out the entertainment value of their one dollar two or three times longer than me. Then, there is my friend who flew into Las Vegas the day after me and won $400 on a pull of the Wheel of Fortune slot machine. This is pretty much the same exact experience I have had the two other times I’ve been to any gambling destination.

To be honest, I did feel a little down about the idea that I’m not a lucky person. After all, who wouldn’t want to consider themselves lucky and who in their right mind would want to be unlucky? After some self-reflection, I did realize that I might have something even better than luck. The Force is strong with me, just kidding. Actually, my self-revelation did occur after I thought how Jedi Knights are actually pretty unlucky. After all, Yoda lived and died in a tree and Obi-Wan Kenobi was living in a cave up until he was reintroduced into Luke Skywalker’s life. This was, of course, after the Jedi’s were plotted against by one of their own, Anakin Skywaler/Darth Vadar. If you ask me, then that’s just about as unlucky as one can get.

Ok, enough of the nerd talk. What I have cannot be summed up in a simple noun, such as luck, and maybe that’s why it might even better. For my adult life, whenever I have set a big goal and put in the hard work, I have achieved my goal. When I graduated High School, I knew that I wanted to transfer to the Walter A. Haas School of Business, which was named the #3 ranked undergraduate business administration program in the United States by US News & World Report. When I was accepted, I had a 4.0 GPA, was a tutor in Economics, started an investment club, a member of the student government, and a volunteer at my local hospital. Of course, at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable about my chances, but in retrospect there was no way I wasn’t getting into the University.

After graduating, I decided that I wanted to take a shot at being a Nightclub DJ. Of course, it’s not that easy to pick up a gig as a DJ when you do not know anybody in the industry. So, I took a job as a janitor at 1015 Folsom Nightclub, which during the 90s was pretty much THE club in San Francisco and arguably the United States because they brought in guys like Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, etc. In less than three months of cleaning of spills, puke and one time feces, I was probably one of the youngest Resident DJ for 1015 Folsom.

After I quit DJing, I tried my hand at producing dance music. I must admit, that actually didn’t go anywhere, but not enough hard work in the world can make up for natural talent. I did once make a bootleg remix of a Snow Patrol song, sent it to Dave Dresden (a famous DJ and music producer), and received very positive feedback from him. So, that is kind of the extent of my success in music production.

After realizing the music career was not going anywhere, I decided to pursue a Masters degree. Originally, I was interested in pursuing a MBA, but I actually ended up doing a Masters in Finance. Coming from such a highly regarded undergraduate program, my goal was for the top programs and that meant a high score on my GMAT, the standardized test required for business school. I studied almost non-stop for half a year. I ended up with a 720, which for my test date was in the 96 Percentile. So, technically, I did better on the test than 96% of other test takers. After visiting London during December, I loved the city so much that I decided to apply to the London Business School. Their MBA program requires a second language, which I do not have, so I applied for their Masters in Finance program. In the end, that’s where I ended up.

Finally, thought I will not get into details, I had to work hard to convince Toon, my girlfriend, that she and I could be a couple. In fact, even though I knew she liked me, she did in fact tell me “no,” twice, before we became a couple. A friend of mine in the Masters in Finance told me something about how he turned his friend into his current wife, “try harder.” That’s exactly what I did. Of course, that’s not the end of our story. I hope that she and I have a lifetime of working together as a couple and with T.I.L. Darling.

I know there is plenty of people right now who wish they had some good luck, but remember that it’s always better to fall back on hard work.

For Fall/Winter 2010, be sure to include velvet in your wardrobe. Designers from Alexander Wang to Ralph Lauren included velvet in their Fall 2010 fashion line-up and the majority of fashion publications have also agreed on this trend. Velvet will no doubt be adapted in shoes and accessories, but have no doubt about it that the fashion houses are pushing for beautiful velvet dresses, tunics, and blazers.